Shaping NGC 6188
16.07.2010

Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through dusty NGC 6188 are tens of light-years long. The emission nebula is found near the edge of an otherwise dark large molecular cloud in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away.

Centaurus A
4.04.2012

What's the closest active galaxy to planet Earth? That would be Centaurus A, only 11 million light-years distant. Spanning over 60,000 light-years, the peculiar elliptical galaxy is also known as NGC 5128.

Rosetta Approaches Asteroid Lutitea
24.04.2012

What would it look like to approach an asteroid in a spaceship? In 2010, ESA's robotic Rosetta spacecraft zipped past the asteroid 21 Lutetia taking data and snapping images in an effort to better determine the history of the asteroid and the origin of its unusual colors.

Stars of a Summer Triangle
26.06.2015

Rising at the start of a northern summer's night, these three bright stars form the familiar asterism known as the Summer Triangle. Altair, Deneb, and Vega are the alpha stars of their respective constellations, Aquila, Cygnus, and Lyra, nestled near the Milky Way.

Perijove Passage
2.06.2017

On May 19, the Juno spacecraft once again swung by Jupiter in its looping 53 day orbit around the Solar System's ruling gas gaint. Beginning at the top, this vertical 14 frame sequence of enhanced-color JunoCam images follows the spacecraft's rapidly changing perspective during its two hour passage.

The Fairy of Eagle Nebula
1.12.2018

The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remain might be imagined as mythical beasts. Featured here is one of several striking dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described as a gigantic alien fairy.

M27: The Dumbbell Nebula
11.07.2021

What will become of our Sun? The first hint of our Sun's future was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets.

A Waterfall and the Milky Way
31.10.2021

The dream was to capture both the waterfall and the Milky Way together. Difficulties included finding a good camera location, artificially illuminating the waterfall and the surrounding valley effectively, capturing the entire scene with...

A Lion in Orion
6.03.2022

Yes, but can you see the lion? A deep exposure shows the famous dark indentation that looks like a horse's head, visible just left and below center, and known unsurprisingly as the Horsehead Nebula. The Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) is part of a vast complex of dark absorbing dust and bright glowing gas.

VDB 142 in Cepheus
11.10.2001

A gorgeous collection of dust and gas nebulae in the Northern Milky Way graces the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. With colors based on astronomical filters, this close up of the region highlights stars embedded in curiously shaped cosmic clouds.